Charlie Culpepper arrived in Round Rock in 1977. The city had 5,000 people, one traffic light, and no particular reason to think it would become part of the fastest-growing county in the United States. He knows, because he was there to see what it took to change that.

In this episode, Culpepper walks Bryan Eisenberg through the decisions that bent the curve. When Dell considered leaving Austin in the early 1990s, Round Rock didn’t just make an offer — they made an unconventional one. Instead of dictating how Dell should spend its incentives, the city trusted the company to grow on its own terms. Dell broke ground on an empty field within a year. Then came Dell Diamond: an earlier stadium effort failed when sales tax voters said no. The eventual solution was hotel occupancy taxes — visitors paid for the stadium, not residents. Today Dell Diamond hosts baseball, concerts, and tournaments year-round.

What Culpepper keeps coming back to isn’t the deals. It’s the culture: collaboration between city leaders, staff, businesses, and nonprofits around a shared vision — build a place where kids who grew up here could find meaningful work without having to leave. He remains active in the community he spent decades shaping.